


Set front row in my need to fall

by Babydoll Ria (Babydoll_Ria)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:11:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babydoll_Ria/pseuds/Babydoll%20Ria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take this sinking boat and point it home<br/>We've still got time</p><p>(Tumblr fics and oneshots originally posted at seevikifangirl)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambpersand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambpersand/gifts), [whiskeysnarker (deathmallow)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/gifts), [sabaceanbabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/gifts), [the_milliners_rook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_milliners_rook/gifts), [garaii](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=garaii), [Trovia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trovia/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt fic: Mags comforting Annie and Finnick after their tours

There is something about seeing two children-because they cannot be anything else but children to her- be so broken in such ways that fragment perfectly together.

But, she musn’t push. She knows how badly that went the last time she mentioned it to Finnick, before she and Annie boarded the train to go on the tour, while Finnick went straight to the Capitol.

**[** _You’ll watch her right? Right? When she screams at night, if you brush her hair she calms down. She hates grapes, or anything round so that’s a trigger and-_

_‘You are very attached to the girl you told me wouldn’t last past the Cornucopia.’_

_Me? To her? She’s insane Mags. She screams at night, and cries all the time. How could I get attached to this girl?_ **]**

She makes hot chocolate, the way her mother taught her, the way it was done before.

**[** _Heat milk in a sauce pan, stir in coco, add a drop of vanilla and a spoon full of sugar. Heat it until you are ready._ **]**

Annie is curled up on the sofa, an old wool blanket pulled over her shoulders. She seems to be intent on making herself smaller than she is, lessening the target range. She remembers doing that, and she knows Finnick does it when he sleeps.

But Finnick, when he is awake, he sprawls out, taking every inch of the sofa, making himself a target.

He has a hero complex; he wants desperately to do the right thing. And he thinks by encompassing all of Snow’s tricks and rules he is saving her.

He is an illusionist, one of the greatest, making everyone fall in love with him. But she can see how jagged his edges have become, and how empty his eyes are when he stares at the ocean.

His sharp edges blend perfectly with Annie’s rounded corners, filling in where she has broken herself, unable to recapture the girl before the arena, and unable to like the girl who came out.

The identity crisis Annie is currently in, is one she knows all too well. Trying to find who you were before it was ripped from you and you became someone else, and hating who you became.

Eventually, you find balance.

She just hopes she does not overcorrect herself the way Finnick has.


	2. digital age bitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Ambpersand
> 
> Prompt: Blind date

It’s called Tindr.

This app download over tequila and rum and coke and a break up with Gloss that makes her much sadder than a friends-with- benefits- turned- actual- relationship that only lasted a few months should.

It’s really stupid, and she just chooses the first five pictures from facebook which happen to be her surfing, the time she fell off the sky lift, the beer Olympics one where she’s drinking from a boot-an actual cowboy boot-, the one where she’s trying to imitate a dinosaur, and then an actual nice one where she’s getting coffee.

It’s weird and simple, swipe right if you think someone’s attractive, swipe left if you don’t.

And it’s an ego boost.

Sometime she reads the biography and sometimes she realizes her own is rather stupid.

_(Annie 21 marine biology. Beach, beer, books. Coffee, cats and chats.)_

She leaves her phone unlocked and she thinks that’s her first mistake.

Her second mistake is living with Cashmere and Enboria because those two are the big sisters she’s never had and they wanted to make sure she was getting sex on a regular basis, because she knows she’s not the person swiping right, and she knows she’s not the one whose talking to them and she knows she’s not the person who agreed to have coffee with the guy she’s currently sitting across from.

She knows this because Enboria texted her saying to meet her for coffee at Starbuck on Fourth and Central, and Cash said she should wear her anchor scarf and this boy tall with strawberry blonde hair a vneck and loafers sprung to attention when she walked in.

‘Annie?’ he had said, and she had turned,’ I’m Finn-Finnick; it’s great to finally meet you.’

And now we’re in the present and she’s staring.

‘Tindr? We were talking on Tindr? For like a week?’ He’s switching his weight from foot to foot, his grin becoming more and more nervous.

‘…Right,’ she says. ‘Yeah, no I don’t  use Tindr. I got when I was drunk, I think you’ve got the wrong person.’

She turns and leaves the coffee shop, and when she gets home she yells bloody murder and puts a timer on the lock on her phone.

She also deletes  Tindr.

But not before she checks out his match, her only match actually.

_(Finn 22 Law school. Swim, surf, sun. Lord of the Rings, HP, and meat. Also rum. Loads of rum.)_

* * *

 

It’s at a party, where she meets Finnick for real.

She’s a bit tipsy, and he’s maybe not that sober after playing crush the can, but it’s Drake playing on someone’s phone and when he sees her with tide on her face because someone simba-d her for the black light, he pushes his way through the crowd.

‘Annie,’ he says and it takes her awhile because he looks a lot different when he’s in his element, also his shirt is off.

‘Tindr boy!’

She hugs him, because it’s a party and it’s what you do.

‘Finnick.’

‘I like that name,’ she smiles.

He takes her hand and leads her to the front porch, it’s fresh air and quieter to talk.

And they do.


	3. my lover is dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She waits three days before she mourns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easter prompt

> _And on the third day he had risen_

* * *

 

Before, before there were Games, there were religions, old ones, so many and she’s hunted down the stories, the books in languages long lost. She’s traced the faded ink, and tried to string the sounds together, to make the stories make sense.

She’s read of Poseidon, the god of the ocean, with his trident and kingdom under the sea, and when she cannot sleep she pretends, it is Finnick ruling the ocean. Poseidon caused earth quakes, and though she knows that the Gamemakers caused the earthquake, sometimes she likes to think it was Finnick trying to protect her, even if they had not spoken more than thirty words at that time.

It would be romantic, though untrue; and Annie clings to stories like a life raft, but she keeps her feet firmly in reality. She mustn’t lose her head to the stories of the old gods now, and Poseidon is one of the oldest.

A newer story tells of a man, a chosen one who traveled the country, making people love him, preaching of salvation. He called for a higher power, equality, and love.

He called for revolution.

The man was betrayed by his dear friend, and crucified. But his lover took her vigilance by his tomb, and one the third day he had risen.

She knows these are stories. She knows the difference between fact and fiction. She knows Katniss did not betray Finnick, did not want to leave him to die, but she still hates her.

This was not their war, this was not their fight.

They had peace; they were safe for the briefest moment.

And revolution took her husband.

She did not cry when Katniss told her.

She waited.

Three days.

She knows it is a story.

But she hopes.

And when Finnick does not come on the third day, she mourns.


	4. death ain't so sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.”-Margret Atwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thea made me cry so I got back at her. Then she made me cry more.
> 
> Thanks

he cell is cold. There is a draft coming in from the most southern corner, and she has yet to find where the hole is.

This cell has been her home for three hundred hours, seventy-nine minutes and thirty-five seconds.  She does not know why she is held prisoner, but she thinks she knows why she was ripped from her bedroom, and brought before the Archangel.

She came quietly, not like the others, both whom she only saw once before she was taken further, deeper underground.

There is no point in screaming, or yelling. She has been in Paradise longer than any of them, taken from Earth from the life of a prize wife from a soldier who took her young miles away from the ocean. She found refuge in Paradise, covering wounds and scars on the surface level, and finding kinship with a man who fought in the same war, yet died brutally by his general’s hand. 

But Paradise is not a place where everything is golden. There is rust on the edge, and discord in the garden.

She knows why she is here. Taking a lover is forbidden in Paradise, and under the light she and the beautiful man exchanged vows and pieces of their souls in secrecy, binding them to each other in Magik that is stronger than the Archangel, and even God.

No one is coming here to save her.

That much is certain.

She held hope for the first two hundred hours, before reality settles in. Her husband is dead, and in reincarnation and she will meet him in the next life. His soul is her’s, and he is her’s and that Magik is unbreakable.

She thought she would feel something when died, something in her being destroyed. But she felt nothing.

* * *

 

It is on the four hundredth hour that the guards in white take her, her bare feet step on cold stone and her dress is torn and her is wild.

She looks like the girl stolen years ago and wedded to a man who did not care.

The Archangel with his hair white, and his perfume of rose overpowering the room, she is made to kneel.

‘Anemone’ His voice curls and sneers over her name, and she refuses to flinch. He has never liked her, deeming unworthy of ascension.   _Whores_ , he had said,  _do not deserve salvation._  ‘The wife of Finnegan.’

She hates the way he calls her title, something sacred becoming sullied by how dismissive his tone is.

Love and soul mates are not something to be tossed aside.

‘Where is he?’ She asks, her voice clear, and echoes around the grand room filled with light, but the Archangel makes it feel colder than her cell.

‘He is expelled.’ The Archangel says, watching her for a reaction.

She does not give him one out of spite.

She can feel it in her bones, in her veins the trauma he must have felt, his beautiful bronze wings plucked from his shoulder blades. The tears he would have wept and curses in the language of old, and the language of new he must have shouted, and the fall from Paradise back to earth with nothing to comfort him as his body changes from angelic to mortal.

She says nothing, and the Archangel displeased by non-reaction sends her back to her cell.

* * *

 

On Earth, the man identified by the hospital clipboard as Finnick Odair wakes up.


	5. Lyric 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would I do without your smart mouth?Drawing me in, and you kicking me out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric 3 sentence fic

When they fight, rare as it is, the silence is deafening and it’s not an explosion but an implosion and Finnick is left standing holding the shattered remains of a plate he cracked, and the vase Annie pushed over as she runs is in pieces on the floor.

He breathes deeply and tries to pick up the pieces of the dish, but they get mixed into the colour shards of vase and he can’t tell which part belongs to his plate or her vase, and it’s a fitting metaphor he thinks bitterly; how broken they both are, that their scars bleed into each other and everything is too close, too much and too fast that he can’t find his ending and Annie’s beginning.

When Annie comes back, soaked from the plunge into the ocean to cool off, she helps him glue the vase and the plate together, the pieces fitting as best they can, and maybe even if it’s not what started out as, it’s still just as good.


	6. Lyric 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "i won't give up on us, even if the skyes are rough, i'm giving you all my love, i'm still looking up." I won't give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric, 3 sentence fic for Complimentsandsmile

He has never doubted them, not since he kissed on the pier when she went swimming and he thought she was trying to drown herself, that he jumped in the water to drag her out.

He is unwavering in his devotion, in their love, and she knows that she has the easier part, sitting and waiting while he gets fucked over by those against his will, and she really can’t complain.

But it hurts, and she’s ashamed of how much it hurts, because it’s nothing compared to how he feels, and she’s just tired.


	7. Lyric 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lucky i'm in love with my best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric and Pairing

He’s thought about love, and the different between love, sex, fucking and friends, and he has come to the conclusion that he will never fall in love, because he cannot possibly be in a relationship ever.

But when he thinks of his ideal relationship, he thinks of walks on the beach, finding bad books and making fun of them while it rains by the fire. He thinks of puzzles and games and getting so worked up over that stupid board with the railways that he can never win, so he throws the board from the table while she laughs and burns the salmon he cleaned earlier because she can’t breathe from his temper tantrum.

( _'The youngest Victor just got bankrupt' she says from the floor, unable to stand._ )

He thinks of lazy mid morning naps, being woken up by frantic searches for a missing shoe which is under the dock, because she raced him to the buoy and lost, but he piggybacked her home and she made hot chocolate and muffins so he is not complaining.

He thinks of waking up in her bed, because she dreamed of her arena and she screamed so loudly he heard her two doors down, and all he could do was rub her back while she calmed down. He thinks of waking up with her on his chest, covering him like a shield that she can protect him from his demons, and when he stands in the shower rubbing himself raw to try to remove their hands from him, she waits outside with a towel and hug if he wants it.

He thinks of kisses stolen so easily, so casually and holding hands like it’s breathing, her smaller one fits nicely in his, and he thinks of making love, not sex, not fucking, but love when he can see her come undone in the most of beautiful of ways.

He thinks he would like that. But he knows that there is no way he can have a relationship.

His friendship with Annie is more than enough.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ''I like big butts and i cannot lie U other brotherz can't deny When a girl walks in with a itty, bitty, waist And a round thing in ur face u get sprung...''

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric 3 sentence fic

The thing about dating Finnick Odair, is that you’re  _dating Finnick Odair_ , he’s been everywhere and done everything, and while he has proven himself that he’s totally in love with you (Him skipping swim practise to pick up ice cream, tampons, Cosmo and season two of _Teen Wolf_ , without a hint of embarrassment won you over), you still feel a bit self conscious when you see him staring.

He’s not staring at the faces, which you don’t know is a relief or not, but he’s staring at all the girls butts in yoga pants, and you feel a bit self conscious-you don’t have an ass, it’s pretty flat back there, like your front-perfect for diving, but not so much for the attraction of boys (Well, no you got Gloss which was the fairy tail high school romance, and he never complained about your A cups or your small ass); but regardless it’s not making you feel better, so you call him out.

'But Annie,' he says green eyes wide and full of deceptive innocence, 'I was just judging! I told Marvel my girlfriend has the best ass in all of California, and he didn't believe me, so I had to get proof, and you do have the best ass!' 


	9. Lyric 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lana Del Rey, Summertime Sadness: "I got my red dress on tonight, dancing in the dark in the pale moonlight"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric 3 sentence fic

The summer in Four is not the idealistic, picturesque one that the Capitol advertises, no this is hurricane season, boats capsize and the seas can be too rough to venture out; this is the time the fishermen are the most nervous about reaching their quota, it is also coincidentally Annie Cresta’s favourite time to sit on the dock, letting the rough waters soothe like a broken lullaby.

The Capitol pictures the ocean as docile, weak and ever giving; it makes her laugh at how people seem to forget that the ocean has a tremendous force, and it drowns anyone mercilessly, the same can be said for the people of District Four.

The water soaks her dress as she pictures what Finnick must be doing back in the arena, and she is angry; the arena did not break the fourteen year old boy he was, the Capitol did, and the man he is now is reclaiming himself, with each old friend he kills to survive, he is claiming his freedom, his name back from the Capitol.

_(It is only fitting the Capitol takes his heart as revenge.)_


	10. Middle Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta: Middle Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing, and a setting

It is forbidden, it rings on his tongue and burns his ears, as he spies Annie the princess, and only child of Beetee; he is only a ranger, he is not given a counsel with Beetee; and it was by fate ( _Chance_ , Jo snorts in his head, _there’s no thing as fate_ ) that he met her swimming in the lake, as barely an adult, she had blushed pink, from the tip of her ears, to her tiny toes and he had fallen in the water, ungracefully for one who was raised in Rivendell near the lakes.

It has been four centuries since that moment, and stolen glance, secret letters, time by the lake and dream walking have only strength her pale delicate fingers around his heart, chaining him to her in a way he willing submits; it is not unrequited, the way Jo thought when he first told her, no Annie has pledge herself to him, refusing all who ask for her hand-yet this does not change anything, he is still just a ranger, a low guard in Rivendell’s army, and she still, is a princess.

It is not until the wizard Haymitch comes baring halflings, one fair and the other dark, is he summoned to an audience with Lord Beetee, Annie, the halflings, and the dwarf regent, Johanna and given a quest to destroy the Dark Lord Snow, does he think for the first time in centuries he and Annie may wed; it is only strengthened when he leaves, she makes him her champion, the impression of her lips still fresh on his, for all of Middle Earth to see. 


	11. Red Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta: Red Wedding, Game of Thrones (I sent this prompt to another odesta blog, but I'd love to see what you do with it as well).
> 
> Still want to know who else did this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing and a setting

A wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day in a woman’s life, second only to the birth of her child to secure her husband’s blood line; and yet the butterflies in Annie Cresta (soon to be Lady Annie Odair wife of Lord Finnick Odair of Four) are not from excited nerves.

She knew; she knew he was engaged to marry Lady Clove, but the marriage was not a love match, and she thought foolishly, when his mother Mags held her hands and told her how beautiful she looked in her green wedding dress, the same colour as Finnick’s eyes (she loves his eyes, how they glow and they tell of a future of laughter, love and enduring happiness, she’s never felt safer of happier in his arms), that everything would be fine.

How wrong she was, it was a massacre, and she screams, she screams as Mags falls, trying to protect her and Finnick, her beautiful, brave, romantic, and argumentative love, fights like the sea itself, unrelenting, and unforgiving, but he falls too; and now it is just her, Lady Annie Odair five minutes into her new life that was supposed to be filled with happiness, love and laughter, her wedding dressed stained an ugly green clutching her’s groom’s body, as Lord Cato, the spurned fiancee’s elder brother advances,

'Kill me as well.'


	12. Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rainy Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing, setting, for Sabaceanbabe

She hasn’t let herself cry since his death, she’s too afraid of coming undone and losing herself in her mind, and doing that could harm the last piece of him she has left.

But when it rains, she stands outside and lets the water soak her to the bone, washing herself in memories that she can pretend is his touch.

She wishes it was her.


	13. Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odesta. Sitting around the coffee table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing, setting

There is a tell, Annie decides, in which you can determine if a couple of people are meant to be just friends or more; and the eaisest test would be -in her humble opinion- how awkward it is the morning after you spend the night together-not that she and Finnick did that, no it was purely innocent and maybe in the smallest part of her mind she might have thought of doing that, but it’s not the time or the place.

It’s an eerie sense of calm, that’s keeping her at the top of the stairs, while she can hear Finnick bustle around in the kitchen of his house (he’s an early riser, she never expected that), last night falling asleep to his breathe and his heart beat had been almost perfect, she doesn’t want to ruin the memory with an awkward breakfast.

Eventually she gathers her nerve and goes down the stair, his back is to her, but her breathe catches and a wide smile erupts over her face; for on the counter, there are two mugs of coffee, one light brown perverted with sugar and cream, the other untouched by anything.


	14. You have x missed calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie's dead, and I wasn't in love with her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old work in progress that never went anywhere

_“Hey this is Annie. I’m not here right now because I’m in class, at work, at the pool or trying to get my lab partner to do his half of the work! So leave your name and a message and I’ll call you back as soon as possible!”_

I watch Finn hang up his phone.

He’s sitting on his bed, looking like he’s the one who drowned.  I don’t know if he’s slept.

‘I didn’t love her.’ He tells me, acknowledging my presence at the door frame.  I give him a look, that he doesn’t see, because he’s staring at her Panem U hoodie, she must have left here. He’s holding like a life line. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

I don’t say anything, and I don’t move either.

‘She was just my lab partner. We were just…we were just friends.’ Finn says hoarsely, ‘I never-I never touched her or kissed or slept with her. We weren’t like that. We weren’t.’  He repeats himself, and I don’t know what he’s trying to do, convince me that he and Annie were just friends, or himself.

I’ve never lost someone.  I don’t know how to deal with grief, I want to punch someone. I want to make a deal, to bargain, because Annie was the kindest girl I know. She’d stop drinking at house parties when I got too drunk. She baked cupcakes when I got anchor in third year. She was the first one at the pool, according to Finn, and she organized everything for the team, and she never wanted credit or thanks.

‘Okay.’ I say.

Annie wasn’t an angel. Well maybe she is now. She had a temper, she swore at Finn when he missed their meetings for lab reports. She stopped talking to him when he slept with a first year on the swim team and never called her back. She snapped at anyone who switched her to decaf.

‘But…like when I think about the future,’ Finn says, slowly like he’s speaking to himself in half formed thoughts, the subconscious things he says when he’s not fully awake, ‘She’s there. Annie’s there and she’s always supposed to be there. Yelling at me and I didn’t love her. I didn’t.’

‘Okay.’ I say.

‘I was going to.’ He whispers, and I wonder why he isn’t crying. But I think it’s shock.  Like he thinks this is still a dream, and when he wakes up, he’s just napping on his textbook while Annie is glaring at him because their deadline is in half an hour and Finn still needs to finish the math.

He hits a button on his phone.

_“Hey this is Annie. I’m not here right now because I’m in class, at work, at the pool or trying to get my lab partner to do his half of the work! So leave your name and a message and I’ll call you back as soon as possible!”_


	15. just a pill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He inherits one green eyed patient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU: Annie is a mental patient and Finnick is her therapist.
> 
> Notes:  
> This isn't shippy. It can't be with the prompt. There are layers of professionalism, and what's more Finnick as her doctor would be in a position of power over her and that would be an abuse of power. Id you wanted shippy happy stuff, this is not the prompt for it. Also it made me uncomfortable writing about this, without fore knowledge, which is of no one's fault but my own.

When Dr. Mags Cohen retired last month, he had inherited her patients.  There were daily, weekly, bi weekly sessions, but only one monthly session.

Doctor Finnick Odair twenty-eight, may be a bit over his head when dealing with Annie Cresta, age twenty-six.

He’s read her files, backwards and forwards, and the first thing he’s noticed is Annie has been seeing Dr. Cohen since she was seventeen, at first it was daily visits, she was hospitalized for some trauma. Nothing in Dr. Cohen’s notes elaborate on what the trauma is, and she never consulted with any of her colleagues, so no one knows.

But for nine straight years, Dr. Cohen has met this girl, who is now currently a PhD candidate in fine art.

She’s been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and depression. There is a small note in the margin saying that she might be relapsing into disordered eating, and to follow up on it.

His first meeting with her is in ten minutes, and he’s already spotted her in the waiting room. Her hair is dark, impeccably smooth and groomed in a nice French knot thing. She’s dressed in fitted professional clothing, and her pale nail polish and her makeup are impeccable.

She is drinking Starbucks, and she has a purple leather planner open in her lap.

She looks normal.

And he knows that normal is subjective, and not everyone suffering from mental health issues looks like they will fall apart in any moment.

‘Annie?’ He calls quietly, and she snaps her planner shut, and he can see her hand tight on the white of the Starbucks and her eyes narrow as she takes him in.

He feels self-conscious, dressed casually.

She follows him, and her nude heels make clicking noises on the tiles. In the heels, she comes up to his shoulder, and she walks down the tiled floor like she knows this place better than him (It could be true, she’s been coming for nine years, he got hired six months ago, fresh off his rotations, he’s surprised to see her wait at the walnut door marked  _Dr. F. Odair_.

‘So you know who I am.’ He tries to make conversation, and the look in her green eyes a different shade than his own, is not amused.

‘By hearsay only.’ She says, setting her designer purse on the floor carefully, shrugging off her jacket and crossing her legs in her ankle before fixing her hands on her lap, waiting for him, while he still stands.

‘All good I hope?’ He smiles, and she looks unimpressed.

‘Apparently you are very good looking.’ She says, waiting for him to sit.

‘That’s all?’ He’s disappointed that she doesn’t have any comments on his practise.

‘And you put too much sugar in your coffee.’ She adds thoughtfully, and a look of betrayal or disgust at his coffee habits.

‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ He points out.

‘No it’s not. There’s a right way to drink coffee and you drink it wrong.’ Annie argues, he raises an eyebrow.

‘And why is that?’

‘All the sugar is just…perverting. You don’t actually get to taste the coffee, you taste the sugar. And if you just want sugar, than why bother with the coffee?’ There’s anger in her voice, just hints of it. And that’s enough to make him thing coffee is a metaphor for something else, and she’s not judging him for his coffee habits but for something else.

And that is not fair.

She barely knows him, and she’s dismissing him.

‘But just coffee makes it bitter, don’t you want something sweet?’ It’s teetering on a dangerous edge, and his voice drops to way that reminds him of bars and scotch and women he never sees again, and he needs to get out of that territory.

Because, yes, Annie Cresta is older than any of his other patients (he’s usually the one to deal with teenagers and kids because of his age), and yes she is very attractive.

But there is a line.

And he’s never crossing it.

‘No.’  


	16. Make up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's only here because she needs more views

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing, setting, for Liana
> 
> Also I really like youtube Odesta

It’s something he’s used to, getting his make up done-sure it’s not very manly but his sexuality has never been in question- and yes he loves his beautiful girlfriend very much.

But still, sitting in front of the camera, listening to his girlfriend talk about the latest MAC blush is not really on his top ten things to do (He’s only here for the make up bit, because he;s the top most subscribed youtuber right now, and when Annie tests make up on him, her videos get much higher views), he can only imagine what Gale is doing because Katniss has to do the _‘Do your boyfriend’s make up tag’_.

'It's a nice colour,' Annie says, showing the pallet to the camera, and then to him, he nods because it just looks like a paler pink than the last one to him.


	17. I love you is too hard to say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> annie telling finnick that she loves him for the first time and she's afraid he doesn't love her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember what this was for.

Words are hard.

Well no, they aren’t.

Its translating words into feelings that is hard, because everyone has millions of different feelings that no one will be able to actually able to comprehend and maybe she’s misjudging it and she\s completely wrong.

She has to be.

Right?

Because Finnick Odair, cannot possible have anything other than empathetic compassion towards Annie Cresta.

He can’t.

He’s Finnick Odair, bronze, beautiful, and always at the Capitol, needed and love and adored.

And to think there is something more than friendly affection when she wakes up screaming because there is blood in the water and blood on her hands and she is a career this should not hurt her as much as it does is just wrong.

She’s perverting their friendship, by wanting more.

She wants Finnick Odair to love her like the Capitol ladies.

Actually she doesn’t.

She doesn’t want Finnick Odair to love her, not fully.

She wants Finn.

She wants the guy who has no sense of direction, and accidently poured baking soda instead salt into the soup.

She is in love with Finn who hates morning, and hates sleeping with blankets, and probably has diabetes because there is too much sugar is diet.

But the thing is Finnick and Finn are the same person and Finnick is callous, and selfish, pushing her away whenever she gets too close, and Finn is warm, and kind, and when he has a bad day, and he locks himself up, refusing to let anyone touch him, she sits outside his door with a good book and a pot of tea and a bowl of sugar cubes and she reads to him.

And she used to be able to keep them separate entities, because he is Finnick Odair, victor, more than he is Finn Odair, fish monger.  But they’re blurring into one person who makes her cry when he tells people in the Capitol she’s mad-she’s not, she’s just as sane as he is, and she isn’t the one who locks himself up for days on end, no, no she just has nightmares, and she hate loud noises and she is always, always thinking-and who holds her like she’s made of something precious and breakable, murmuring words she never actually fully hears into her hair, more like a lover than a friend or a brother.

And it scares her, because she is love with Finnick Odair, every version of him, the bitter with the sweet and she is afraid of how it will go.

Because she is a killer, and he is a killer; and they are both victors. The arena didn’t destroy her, it just rebuilt her, but she thinks if Finn-and-Finnick Odair says he doesn’t love her, it will destroy her.


	18. if it saves him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie learns that President Snow has been selling Finnick's body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really headcanon that Snow told Annie instead of letting Finnick tell Annie.

The satin feels odd against her skin,  she feels trapped and it makes every movement, the few she makes without Finnick helping her, feel rough, like she’s standing on hot sand and unable to move.

This is it, she is done. Finnick promises she is safe.

She likes the way he looks when he tells her no one will ever touch her again, his head is held high, and his eyes like glass marbles, green like the sea under the sun feel so real.

Sometimes when he looks like that she can imagine falling in love with him.  Real love. Not the type all the girls talk about, involved with weddings and flowers.

She can imagine when he looks at her like that, arguing over who is doing dishes, and who has to take the garbage out, the clearness and the pure drive and commitment in his face daring her to prove him wrong.

She wonders if Finnick could fall in love with her.

She doubts it.

He helps her though, when she wakes up screaming because she thinks she’s in the arena, and his head, oh his head and there is blood so much blood.

He makes her coffee and sometimes they talk, they talk about the weather, books, boats, anything and everything.  They talk about the games too. She hates talking about them, but it helps. Because he knows what it feels like to feel trapped and to realize that the arena killed the girl she used to be, and now there is something, something twisted, jagged and broken. 

President Snow’s hand is light on her shoulder, but she can’t shake the feeling like his touch is toxic, as he leads her to his office.

‘Congratulations Miss Cresta.’ He says, politely, ‘You are certainly a surprising victor.’

She flushes red, as the memory of breaking the dam, and finding the survivors who could swim, and dragging them down in the darker depths.

It’s not her finest moment.

‘Do you know why it is called The Hunger Games?’  President Snow asks slowly, like he is explaining things to a small child, not an eighteen year old girl who killed two people with a butterfly knife, and drowned four more. ‘It’s called that because games have rules. And quiet simply my dear, you broke the rules. ‘

His message is clear, what she did was illegal.

‘Oh.’  She says softly, wondering what he will do now.

Finnick says she is safe, but she suddenly feels like she is back the arena, in a trap like a net and she can’t get out.

The screens behind President Snow’s desk flicker, and she has a video stream, the date and time stamp in the corner tells her it is happening in real time.

It is Finnick, beautiful, beautiful Finnick being beaten and carved up by a man with pink hair. The man bites at Finnick’s neck and drags a knife down his thigh. The man doesn’t notice but she watches as Finnick bites his lip and winces.

There’s a strangle scream and she realizes it’s from her, when the man forces Finnick around and enters him.

‘The Games are expensive Miss Cresta.’ President Snow says in her ear, ‘And Victors like Finnick must thank the generous donors to the cause.’

She can stop staring revolted as the man slice Finnick up and red liquid dots the table he is bent over.

‘I have gotten many requests about you as well.’ President Snow continues, ‘But I was told to turn them down.’

Things click then, the reason why Finnick avoids crowds, and the small look of terror before his charismatic smile falls into place. Why she reaches out to touch him first, and how he never touches her unless she tells him he can.

She feels sick.

‘I will make you a deal Miss Cresta,’  President Snow says, and she can feel his eyes born into skull, and she is trapped like the fish in the net, about to get speared, and she hasn’t a clue how to get herself free. ‘I will make sure the donors Finnick thanks are gentle ones, kind ones, he will be safe with them. And you, Miss Cresta, disappear. You do not step foot in the Capitol, you talk to no one.’

Finnick promised she would be safe, he would take care of her.

She thinks she could fall in love with him, real love.

Parts of her think she already is.

And real love means sacrifice, it means promising Finnick he will be safe, that she will take care of him, and she will protect him.

She will become whoever President Snow wants her to be, if it saves Finnick.

‘Yes.’ She breathes.


	19. oh darling what do we do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can’t be a parent when she has to be reminded to eat her vegetables and that you can’t actually just live on coffee and chips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abortion.
> 
> For Garaii.
> 
> Also minor Annie bashing.

She can’t be a parent when she has to be reminded to eat her vegetables and that you can’t actually just live on coffee and chips.

 

It’s a nice coffee shop, a three minute walk from campus, and one she and Finn frequented staying up late going over thesis proposals.

It’s where he first kissed her, after minths of telling her about his girlfriend in the biology program, the one he lives with and he loves.

But he must not love her, because he fucked her in her bedroom when Annie fucking Cresta was puking in the downstairs bathroom.

Finnick isn’t a good boyfriend.

And maybe this is love.

Maybe.

She’s never been in love.

But it feels like electric shocks up and down her spine, and she spends a lot of time staring at her phone, waiting for his text and his snapchats and it’s really just fucking irriating to see his facebook profile picture is him and Annie fucking Cresta.

Seriously how can a girl be so stupid to not realize her live in boyfriend is cheating on her? And that girl is Dean List and everything.

He’s late, always by twenty minutes, and she’s learnt that the only reason he’s ever on time is because Annie fucking Cresta has turned all their clocks thirty minutes early, and when she realized that Annie fucking Cresta pleaded with her not to tell him, otherwise he’d never be on time.

She should have told him, he’s an adult, twenty-two years old and Annie fucking Cresta hasn’t have a leg to stand on to ask her anything.

He’s wearing a leather jacket and his ginger hair is mussed up, not gelled but from the way Annie fucking Cresta plays with his hair when she’s studying.

It’s weird, it’s like they always have to be touching to make sure they’re in love-well when they’re not touching, he’s kissing her so maybe it’s true.

‘Hey,’ he grins holding the Americano in one hand, and his iPhone in the other hand, ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m having your abortion.’

Well that wasn’t the way  she wanted to have this conversation, but it’s not really an easy conversation.

And actually the look on his face, like he’s been run over by  a freight train is hilarious and one she wishes to have forever immortalized but she thinks it’s a bit tacky to take a photo-Annie fucking Cresta takes photos of everything- and she thinks it’s a good way to start the conversation.

‘What?’

‘I’m having your abortion. Thursday at three.’

Finnick has trouble sitting down, and she waits for him to wrap his head around it; they were never really safe, and they’ve been going like rabbits so it was bound to happen.

‘You don-‘

‘I do,’ she interrupts, pretending to be bored of this conversation, because it has to be done. He’s a sucker for a family, wants it more than anything, from the daydreams he traces on her back before he gets his pants and leaves to kiss Annie fucking Cresta.

She’s twenty-one, she’s got student loans and she waitresses at a shitty hole in the wall pub. She can’t be a parent when she has to be reminded to eat her vegetables and that you can’t actually just live on coffee and chips.

‘I don’t want it,’ that one’s true, she doesn’t. And she won’t let him sweet talk her into thinking a child is a good idea. ‘And I don’t want you.’

That’s a lie.

But maybe this is growing up.

Realizing if you can’t keep a goldfish alive, you can’t have a kid, and telling the guy you’re sleeping with who has a girlfriend you can’t sleep with him anymore.

If it is, it kind of sucks.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Trovia:
> 
> Too good to pass up. ;) Finnick/Annie, "Don't you wish you could just give mercury poisoning to people you hate?"
> 
> I had fun

He looks up, startled from the net he’s woven. It’s Annie Cresta alright, pretty Annie with hair wet from the waves whose standing over him with a look of utter disgust.

'Sorry?'

'I mean mercury just piles up in fish, so if they just eat a bunch of raw fish every day, it's practically untraceable,' she continues not passing to look at him. 'Also DDP'

'Right,' he says slowly. 'What brought this on?'

'Oh you know,' she grimaces,'they're saying you're the only reason why I won my games.'

Finnick snorts, ‘Obviously they’ve never realized you’re planning on killing them by force feeding them sushi.’


End file.
